A Structure For Short Stories

I was going to take a break from talking about story structure but I came across a fabulous post by Chris Winkle over at Mythcreants, “Outline a Short Story in Seven Steps,” that I have to share.

I encourage you to head over to Chris Winkle’s site and read his article for yourself, what follows is what I’m going to call ‘a creative summary.’ Inevitably, I’ve filtered his ideas through my own point of view. One of the results of this is that CW’s seven points have blossomed into nine.

1. Create a problem

This problem will be the central conflict of the story. I like to think of this as ‘the engine’ since this is what drives the story forward, as well as what will initially grab the reader's curiosity. Additionally, this problem is what propels the protagonist to action.

CW advises writers to make this problem neither too easy nor too complex. He writes:

“... if you choose something trivial, you’ll work harder to make it meaningful, and if you choose something daunting, you could struggle to find a solution.”

Instead: “Look for a significant problem that can be solved by one person, in one scene.”

Great advice! I’m realizing why so many of my short stories morphed into novellas or novels: I have the habit of using problems that are much too big.

2. Create a character (the protagonist) to have this problem

CW (wisely) advises us to follow KISS (keep it simple ... silly). We’re trying to write a short story, so don’t describe anything that isn’t integral to the story.

CW also advises that the protagonist be consistent, distinctive, driven, complex, deep and evolving. (To read more on this see CW’s article: The Six Traits of Strong Characters. Jim Butcher has also written about this on his Livejournal account: Characters.)

3. Answer the question, Why does this problem matter to this character?

CW writes: 

“The more important the problem is to the character, the more important it becomes to the reader. Come up with a solid reason why this character cares; this goes double if your problem is trivial. Raise the stakes until it has emotional impact.”

Humans are ruled by their curiosity. Yesterday I was watching a recording of a live performance and the only thing I remember about it is that one of the people in the balcony had his jacket draped over the edge. I kept wondering, Will it fall? 

I know, this was completely trivial. It was just a silly old jacket. Even if it did fall the stakes were infinitesimal. Imagine how captivated I would have been if, say, the President of the United States were to pass underneath?

This also illustrates an important principle: How does a problem become important? By raising the stakes. (Also, by showing the character’s motivation to win the goal.)

4. Introduce an obstacle that prevents the protagonist from achieving his/her goal

If the problem is solved too soon, there is no story. So an obstacle has to be introduced, something that will keep the protagonist from quickly and easily achieving their goal.

Character is revealed in adversity, so throwing a bunch of trouble at your protagonist is, all around, the best thing you could do for the story.

The protagonist’s external arc

Often the obstacle is introduced by an antagonist. That is, by someone who is very similar to the protagonist in that they have a strong, clear, goal. In the antagonist’s case, of course, this goal is in direct opposition to the protagonist’s goal.

Let’s say the protagonist wants to go off to a college in a far away state in order to study environmental management. Their goal is to, eventually, preserve a patch of wetlands near their childhood home, one that is threatened by a proposed development. If this were the case then the antagonist would want exactly the opposite.

The antagonist doesn’t have to be a villain. For example, the antagonist could be the protagonist’s mother, someone who wants to keep her child close, and safe, and cared for. Someone who doesn’t want them leaving for four long years. 

Or, if we wanted a villain, the antagonist could be an unscrupulous land developer who wants to build a shopping mall over the wetlands.

And so on. The crucial thing is for the protagonist’s goal and the antagonist’s goal to be mutually exclusive. If one attains their goal then it must be impossible for the other to. (Although they can both lose.)

The protagonist’s internal arc

What I’ve written about, above, concerning the wetlands, etc., would be part of the protagonist’s external arc. CW points out that if you want your protagonist to have an internal arc as well as an external one, to “make their obstacle a personality flaw.” (For example, Mr. Monk.)

5. Have the protagonist fail

CW advises us to include at least one try-fail cycle but no more than three. And be sure to show the consequences of this failure. That is, show the consequences for the protagonist and those he cares about. This is how one builds suspense. 

CW writes that “after every attempt, they should be worse off than when they started.” (This is usually done in a sequel. For more on this see, The Structure of a Short Story: The New Plan.) 

6. Build the solution to the problem into the protagonist’s failures

This is excellent advice, the kind that makes me want to pick up a pen and start scribbling! CW advises that we ...

“Give each failed attempt a small step toward the solution. It might be a clue, a tool, or a piece of advice that will help your character. That doesn’t mean they’ll recognize it right away. In fact, it’s better if they don’t.”

7. Create a critical turning point

After the last, biggest, most devastating defeat something happens—perhaps the protagonist has an epiphany—and the hints you scattered in (6) finally come together in the protagonist’s mind.

CW writes: “They have a stunning realization, a clever idea, or finally understand a piece of wisdom.”

Sounds happy, doesn’t it? If tragedy is more your cup of tea, CW has advice for you as well:

“If you’re planning an unhappy ending, the hero’s realization may be false or incomplete. Perhaps the hero latches on to the wrong solution to their problem.”

Note: Even if the protagonist will ultimately fail, your readers should still feel there’s hope.

8. Show the hero achieving (or failing to achieve) his goal

Whether the protagonist wins or loses should hinge upon a choice he makes. There isn’t much to write here because, to a large extent, what happens is determined by all that has gone before.

9. Wrap up

CW didn’t explicitly include this step, and perhaps it is implicit in the above, but I’ll mention it anyway. Here we show the stakes being cashed out. We show how the protagonist’s world changes because he achieved his goal. If there were other main characters, show what happens to them.

Also, if the antagonistic force was a character (sometimes it’s simply a ticking clock and time), show her receiving her just deserts.

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Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

Today I'm recommending a book I wrote about—fittingly!—story structure: The Structure of a Great Story: How to Write a Suspenseful Tale!

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That’s it! If you haven’t, I recommend reading Chris Winkle’s article in it’s entirety. He scattered links throughout, links which lead, like magical breadcrumbs, deeper into a dense maze of captivating articles.

See you Wednesday!

Other articles you might like:

17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story
How To Write A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story
Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction

Crying Uncle: When Should We Lay A Story Aside?

When should we lay a story aside? 

It’s a difficult question. I know, I’m struggling with it. Though I’ve finished other stories over the past few months, one remains stubbornly unfinished, the one I care about most—my murder mystery.

It boggles the mind. How can I love reading murder mysteries, how can I watch them incessantly, and not be able to finish writing one?

Am I too close to the story, too emotionally involved? Perhaps I judge my mystery stories more harshly than my other work? Perhaps, even though I love cosy mysteries it just takes practice. It’s not something I should expect to work on the first (or even the fifteenth!) try.

Reasons aside, because of my predicament, the question has been taking laps around my brain: When, if ever, is it okay to lay aside a story?

1. Too Big

Sometimes a story is too big, too complex, and it overwhelms the writer. This happened to me several times when I first started out. It was like catching the tail of a dragon, I wasn’t strong enough (yet) to hold on and the dragon wrenched free and flew away.

2. The Story Changes

I think, at times, a story changes too much from conception to execution, from that initial red hot idea to the cold, sedate, logical outline one finally hammers out. It’s a bit like falling in love with someone then taking them home to see one’s parents, sitting around the dinner table. Suddenly, one sees them in a new, and not very attractive, light. What one once thought whimsically romantic becomes childish and ill-conceived. 

Though I like to outline I think that, if the story is changed too much, it can disintegrate, twisted beyond recognition. Although it is perhaps a tad melodramatic to say, it’s as though the story loses its soul. 

When that happens, one’s passion seeps away.

Often, when a story is left to lie for days, weeks, months or years what kills the story isn’t that we lose the thread—though, absolutely, that happens—but that we lose the story’s heart. 

We fall out of love with it, with the characters, with the setting, with the initial idea that captivated us.

And, yet ... In my mind’s eye I see a phalanx of professional writers frowning, saying, “It doesn’t matter if you’re in LOVE with the story, it’s a job! You finish what you start or you don’t get paid, end of discussion.”

And that is, of course, correct. One doesn’t have to be enthusiastic about a thing in order to do it. One doesn’t always FEEL like going to work, but one still does it.

But, against that, I would argue that if one can’t sustain passion for the core idea of the story, for the characters, long enough to write a first draft then one doesn’t care about the story enough to see it through the umpteen drafts it takes to turn the raw clay of one’s first attempt into a finished product.

I think that, for myself, the golden rule is: Write a complete zero draft BEFORE one begins outlining.

Perhaps—and I realize this is a grizzly analogy—it’s a bit like a brain surgeon trying to operate without first mapping the patient’s brain. With a finished zero draft in hand, I have a better grasp of what is essential to the characters, to the story, before I begin operating/outlining.

3. There’s no such thing as writer’s block, just put your butt in a chair and WRITE!

I’ve heard this often, and I think I know what the people who say this want to express.

When I have a deadline, it doesn’t matter if I feel inspired, I have to hand something in.

When one has a contract to deliver a certain story by a specific date, it doesn’t matter if one feels one’s story is as exciting as uncolored cardboard or as interesting as drying paint. One is on the hook and must turn something in. And chances are what one turns in won’t be as bad as it seems when writing. But, from a certain perspective, it doesn’t matter. One gave one’s word that something would be turned in, so something (no matter how dreadful) WILL be turned in.

Even so, writer’s block exists. It’s a real thing. I know, I’ve had it. I couldn’t write after my father passed away. Every time I sat at my computer, fingers poised over the keyboard, time would warp and I saw my father’s face. Not his face as it was in life, but as he lay dying, his brain shutting down, his humanity being stripped away.

In retrospect, I was likely traumatized, my thoughts pulled back to the moment at which my life had become warped, the moment at which certain things had stopped making sense.

I got through it with the help of friends. I realized I could still write, just no longer at the computer. I could write longhand. My journalling practice dates from then, from that realization.

Sorry for rambling. To sum up, I DO believe that writer’s block is a real thing, but I also believe there are ways around it.

Just because you lay a story aside doesn’t mean you’re giving up.

The point of this meandering essay is: Boxing a story is not giving up. 

Recently I finished a story I began over a decade ago. It was unfinished because I didn’t know the ending. The story came into being as a writing exercise. I hadn’t intended to do anything with it, but the characters drew breath and insisted I finish what I had begun. 

The problem: I had NO idea how the story ended.

I took various runs at it over the years, but nothing stuck, nothing felt right. Then, one day, a friend’s chance remark kicked off a cascade of ideas that lead to me looking at the story differently and the ending popped, fully formed, into my mind. I have no words to describe the ecstasy of that moment, the joy, the relief of realizing my story was complete.

Summing Up

Although I finish the overwhelming majority of stories I begin, there is still the occasional tale, one I’m writing for my own amusement (which is how I begin most of my stories) that will demand to be laid aside. But that doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned the story. It took Stephen King over 30 years to finish “Under The Dome.” As Bob Wiley said in “What About Bob”: This one’s just temporarily disconnected.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

What Are You Reading?

I've often stressed the importance of reading so, today, let's talk about what books we're reading. (And, yes, I got this idea from Chuck Wendig!)

At the moment I'm polishing off Brimstone , the fifth book in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s fabulous mystery-thriller series featuring their quirky yet indomitable sleuth Aloysius Pendergast. Preston and Child know how to generate suspense. Their books keep me up until indecent hours!

I'm also reading—and, yes, this book has been on my to-be-read list for a while—The Secret History by Donna Tartt. For some reason I thought the book would be dry and academic, but when I picked it up at the bookstore it hooked me immediately. 

I like having two books cued up, ready to go, so my third book is J.D. Robb's (/Nora Roberts) futuristic mystery-romance Holiday in Death .

If I had to pick one book out as a favorite, one I've read fairly recently, I'd have to go with Gillian Flynn’s “Sharp Objects,” but “Gone Girl” is fabulous as well. I highly recommend the audiobook since those particular narrators helped bring the characters to life.

What are you reading? What's your favorite genre? Please share!

What Bad Books Can Tell Us About Good Writing

Today I want to discuss what bad books can tell us about good writing. To do this I’m going to discuss the history of an intentionally bad book—Atlanta Nights—and tell you about something surprising (well, surprising to me) I’ve discovered.

Atlanta Nights

First, Atlanta Nights. This book was created as part of a sting operation against notorious vanity publisher, Publish America. James D. Macdonald organized a group of science fiction and fantasy authors to pull off this travesty, each author taking a chapter (one was computer generated!), with the goal of creating a story so bad only a vanity publisher would accept it. Appropriately, the group pseudonym they adopted was: Travis Tea. (See: Atlanta Nights)

Happily, Publish America accepted the book allowing everyone to ask a very good question: Why on earth would a respectable publisher, one who made their money from book sales, accept such absolute dreck? After all, it was so bad the publisher couldn’t possibly hope to make money on it. Unless, that is, Publish America wasn’t a respectable publisher at all. (If you’d like to read more about Publish America and the controversy swirling around it, head over to Absolute Write.)

What Atlanta Nights Can Tell Us About Good Writing

Here we have a rarity, an intentionally horrible book. It turns out (and this is the surprising bit I’ll go into in more depth at the end of this post) that writing a bad book isn’t easy.

Story vs Prose

Here’s how I look at things, writing—good or bad—is composed of two things, the prose itself and the story the prose expresses. I agree wholeheartedly that the story expressed by the prose in Atlanta Nights is awful, horrible, irredeemable. But the prose itself, it’s actually not that bad. It’s not good, but it’s certainly nowhere near as bad as the story it expresses.

From the outset, I’d like to make one thing perfectly, vividly, clear: Atlanta Nights IS a bad book. I know that’s not a technical way of putting things, saying just that something is ‘bad’ isn’t descriptive. So I’ll let you judge for yourself. What follows is a quotation from Chapter Two of Atlanta Nights:

The Atlanta sun slanted low in the west, rain showers predicted for later that afternoon, then clearing. Bruce Lucent looked from the side window of his friend's shiny Maserati sports car as they wheeled their way westward against the afternoon traffic.

"I'm glad you could give me a ride," Bruce Lucent muttered, his pain-worn face reddened by the yellow sunlight. "What with my new car all smashed and all."

His old friend, Isadore, shook his massive head at him. "We know how it must be to have a lot of money but no working car," he said, the harsh Macon County drawl of his voice softened by his years in Atlanta high society. "It's my pleasure to bring you back to your fancy apartment, and we're all so happy that y'all is still alive. Y'all could have been killed in that dreadful wreck." Isadore paused to put on the turn signal before making a safe turn across rush-hour traffic into the parking lot of Bruce Lucent's luxury apartment building. "Y'all'll gets a new car on Monday."

"I don't know how I'll be able to drive it with my arm in a cast," Bruce Lucent shoots back. "It's lucky I wasn't killed outright like so many people are when they have horrid automobile wrecks." (Atlanta Nights—this link leads you to a free pdf of the story; it’s on the website of Andrew Burt, one of the authors.)

This is certainly NOT good writing, and intentionally so. (This bit was excerpted from the chapter penned by James D. Macdonald.) I’d say the authors collectively called Travis Tea did a fabulous job creating a story no respectable publisher would buy.

But, as I said, there’s a problem. It turns out that while we all intuitively recognize this writing as bad, that, in one respect, it’s ... okay.

Let me explain.

I’ve been creating a program, a writing analysis program, that has the ability to analyze a book and compare it to other books along various dimensions.

For example, my program will look at how many “-ly” adverbs, wh-adverbs, how many superlative adjectives, how many verbs ending in “-ing,” and so on, a book contains. Based on this my program will generate a score for the book.

One thing I was curious about was how close my generated score (a score generated from objective and quantifiable characteristics) would align with the subjective scores I had assigned each book.

The Results

It turns out that the score generated by my program and the subjective scores I’ve assigned to each of the books are strongly correlated. 

So far so good. 

But there is a problem. It turns out that while my program generated scores are quite close to the user defined scores for the higher scoring books that the generated scores are off when it comes to one low-scoring book.

That book is Atlanta Nights.

It turns out that although humans have no trouble identifying Atlanta Nights as bad, it throws my program for a loop. While it should put Atlanta Nights in the same group of books as The Eye of Argon, my program consistently puts it closer to James Patterson’s books (and, while Patterson’s books aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, they certainly aren’t bad in the same way Atlanta Nights is bad.).

In the beginning, this caused me no end of concern. I thought something had to be seriously wrong with my program since it scored Atlanta Nights high.

But, what I’ve come to suspect, is that the writers of Atlanta Nights did one thing well and one thing not so well. What they did well was telling an awful story. What they did not so well was WRITING an awful story. That is, they couldn’t help themselves, their prose itself (as opposed to the concepts expressed by that prose) wasn’t in the same badness category as, say, The Eye of Argon. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was good! Far from it. But it wasn’t horrible. 

Now, I’m not at all trying to cast aspersions on any of the writers involved in the creation of Atlanta Nights. I’m just saying that, in a way, they failed. Their prose (as opposed to the story expressed by their prose) wasn’t all that bad. Or, rather, wasn’t as bad as some books that have gotten published by traditional, non-vanity, publishers (case in point: The Eye of Argon).

This seems to point to something truly interesting, and the reason I wrote this post: It’s possible that one’s prose style is built up over a long period of time—years—and becomes ingrained, like one’s accent or culinary cravings.

It’s possible that we, as writers, aren’t even completely conscious of our prose style and so find it very difficult to change, even when we want to!

What do you think? Whatever your opinion, I invite you to create a truly terrible microstory of 100 words or less.

Crafting An Effective Writing Prompt

As many of you know, for the past few months I’ve been posting one writing prompt a day on Google+ (I’ve begun archiving them on Pinterest), a practice which has given me ample time to reflect on a deceptively simple question: What makes a good writing prompt?

What Is A Writing Prompt?

First and foremost, a writing prompt is one that—as the name implies—provokes someone to write. In this writing prompts are a bit like jokes. Can a joke really be called a joke if it doesn’t make anyone laugh?

Some connoisseurs of prompts are picky and demand that one only write about one’s characters and then only in the third person. I disagree. I encourage folks to reply in whichever person strikes their fancy (and, let’s face it, prompts are an invitation to try out unfamiliar and perhaps quirky styles of writing, such as second person future tense). And if one wishes to recount something about one’s own life (or one’s re-imagined life), that’s fine! 

After all, writing prompts invite quirkiness, they invite experimentation and stretching one’s writing muscles by doing something one has never done before, whether this is writing about a certain subject matter or writing in a person or tense one has never tried.

3 Characteristics of Effective Writing Prompts

I’ll be the first to admit there is no formula for creating a writing prompt which gets people to put pen to paper and write something. But, with that caveat, here are a few qualities I’ve found most of my popular prompts shared.

1. An effective writing prompt is short.

A while back, I experimented with the length of prompts and discovered that the shorter the prompt the more responses it got. So I’ve made it a rule: If a writing prompt can’t fit on a 3 x 5 inch index card, it’s too long.

2. An effective writing prompt asks something about the writer/reader.

Or, possibly one of the writer’s characters. But I’ve tried posting conundrums having to do with one’s characters rather than the writer/reader themselves, and it seems to me that most of the popular prompts have asked about the latter.

3. An effective writing prompt has a clever twist, something that captures the writer’s/reader’s imagination.

This is something that is definitely more easily said than done. It isn’t as though one can sit down at one’s desk and say to one’s muse: I need a clever twist, please. At least that’s never worked for me, you may have better luck!

What I’ve found is that if a particular thought fires up my own imagination, if it makes me puzzle about how I’d write a response to the prompt, then it’s probably going to have the same effect on others.

Conclusion

Perhaps prompt writing is a bit like comedy in this sense. One has to expose one’s work to the public to see what will catch. If a person laughs (/responds to your prompt) it’s a keeper. If not, back to the drawing board.

That’s it!

If you’d like to read some fun prompts pick up a copy of “642 Things To Write About: Young Writer’s Edition,” or Ryan Andrew Kinder’s excellent volume of prompts, “1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts.”

Talk to you again on Monday.

10 Favorite Writing Blogs

I’m fortunate. I’m amazed whenever I compare the sheer amount of excellent writing advice available today—for free!—to what was available when I was a kid. Which, really, was nothing.

Even in school, though we were encouraged to read and to write, no mention was made of character arcs or pacing, about how to build suspense or craft well rounded characters.

(Saying this, I feel a bit like the old codgers of my day who went on and on about having to hike 10 miles through the snow—uphill—both ways.)

These days we have a wealth of wonderful blogs on the topic of writing, blogs that regularly cover the bones of how to write suspenseful—which is to say, dramatic—prose. And, by taking a look at the material from a different vantage point each time, it is never boring.

I haven’t shared links to my favorite blogs in a while so I want to remedy that today. I’ve looked through my Twitter feed and written down a few names. Let me stress, though, that the names I share below barely scratch the surface of the number of blogs I read regularly. I’m sure if I had a complete list in front of me I’d be sharing dozens of names!

In any case, here they are in no particular order:

My Favorite Writing Blogs

Elizabeth Spann Craig

The Write Practice

Live Write Thrive

Mythcreants

Janice Hardy

Writer Unboxed

Jane Friedman

Jami Gold

Chronicles of the Scribe

Catherine, Caffeinated

That’s it! Good reading and writing, see you Friday. :-)

4 Ways To Create And Nurture The Habit of Writing

Creating and maintaining a writing habit is, like writing itself, simple but far from easy. I know. There are habits I would love to have but don’t. In part, this is because there are only so many hours in the day and, in part, because certain habits seemed as though they’d be more rewarding than they turned out to be.

These ruminations have been brought on by an article I read over at BrainPickings.org: Mary Oliver on How Habit Gives Shape to Our Inner Lives. 

The Value of Habit

This essay got me thinking, reflecting, ruminating, about my blog and about what has allowed me, despite my natural inclination to disorder, to blog more-or-less regularly over the past few years.

If I hadn’t formed the habit of blogging, this blog would not exist. And that would be a shame, because my blog has turned out to be one of the most personally significant undertakings of my life. Not—alas!—in terms of money made, but certainly in terms of the folks I’ve met. 

Creating A Habit

After the first year or so of daily blogging, it began to feel odd, even uncomfortable, if I didn’t blog. It felt as though a part of me had gone missing. I felt almost compelled to sit down and write. And so it was that my blog made the act of writing an important part of my everyday life.

Thanks to you, my readers, giving me feedback—or just stopping by to say “Hi!”—I’ve had (and hopefully will continue to have) the wonderful experience of reaching through the page to connect with others through my words. I’ve been able to share my thoughts, my musings, my hopes and fears, my triumphs and deep losses, with a community.

And all this thanks to something that can seem to some relatively trifling: a blog. Well, a blog and the habit it helped to form. 

The habit of blogging is really the habit of putting my butt in my office chair in the mornings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and keeping it there until an idea finds me.

Of course, as you may be all too aware, that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes I cast about for something to write, something that grabs me, excites me, but nothing comes. Still, those days, I stick at it and, eventually, words find their reluctant way onto paper and an essay of sorts will take shape. The important thing, though, is that my butt goes in the chair and stays there until either, hours later, I’m convinced it’s a lost cause OR something happens. And, thankfully, it usually does. (Knock on wood.)

What gets me into trouble, what can always completely derail me, are two things: a big, massive, gargantuan idea, one much too involved and complex for one blog post and, second, tinkering with my writing analysis program (but that’s an entirely different post!).

In any case, for what they are worth, here are my tips for the creation and nurturing of a habit.

1. Take it seriously

I have the unfortunate tendency to think of some of my goals as unimportant in the grand scheme of things and so let other concerns crowd them out. When it comes to my blog, folks have actually said to me, “You shouldn’t prioritize it. After all, it’s only a blog.” I think there is something of a prejudice against blogging. Why, I don’t know. Perhaps because one doesn’t make money from it? Hopefully not, because that’s also true of many of the most satisfying things in life. In any case, I digress.

Whatever it is you are trying to make a habit of, it can be tempting—especially when time is short and other concerns are pressing—to minimize the importance of the thing, the activity, you are attempting to make habitual. Resist this! How? Through resisting the desire, the urge, to procrastinate. Again, how? Through recognizing that this urge, this desire, has been spawned by fear. (Or so I would argue.)

2. Fear is the enemy

To paraphrase Frank Herbert: Fear is the habit killer. 

Forming a new habit represents change and change can be scary. Whenever something new is created, something old must die. One minute spent writing is one minute away from your children, your spouse. It is time away from exercising, from watching movies and chatting with friends.

Fear of the future, fear of being laughed at, fear of pouring your heart into something and being rejected. These are all reasons to procrastinate, to let your new habit die on the vine. 

3. Do it for yourself

Create the habit because it will nourish you, because you will get something personal out of it. (Really, I think this is the secret to accomplishing anything.)

That may sound odd so let me use my blog as an example of what I mean. Yes, I think it is a good idea for writers to have a blog. For starters, I believe that regular blogging helps to build that mysterious thing called “a platform” (and, actually, that’s why I began blogging). But at some point every single one of those external reasons will be stripped away. At least, that happened to me. Those were tough times and I would have stopped blogging if the act itself didn’t fulfill something deep within myself.

4. Find, or create, a support group

It’s a rare thing, but if you find a support group—that is, a group of people who will encourage you to write no matter what—then treat them like the treasures they are. 

And, here, I’m not suggesting that if someone says to you: I’m going to quit my job and write full time because I know I can produce a New York Times Bestseller within the year,” that you should paste on a smile and say, “You go girl!”  

There is one very simple rule I follow when giving writers feedback: Writing is better than not writing. No matter a writer’s level of skill, there is only one way to get better: keep reading and keep writing. Ultimately, a good support group will encourage its members to do just this. 

So write! And if you’re not writing, read! Form those productive habits and, above all, never, ever, give up.

See you on Wednesday. :-)

Photo credit: This is a collage I adjusted and assembled with the aid of Photoshop.

10 Most Popular Posts of 2014

Happy New Year! I’m going to celebrate the upcoming new year by looking back at my most popular posts of 2014.

Coming in at number ten we have:

10. How To Write Like Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time and one of my favorite authors. I've spent many a night curled up in front of a roaring fire, cocoa close at hand, reading her familiar tales. 

Although no one can write exactly like she did—nor would we want to. The goal of each writer is to develop their own voice—time and again I have wondered which elements of her stories contributed to her phenomenal success. I'm not suggesting she employed any sort of formula, but I believe there must have been certain characteristic regularities to her work that contributed to her becoming the most read mystery writer in the world. (Continue reading: How To Write Like Agatha Christie.)

9. How Michael Moorcock Wrote A Novel In Three Days

Yes! Moorcock actually did write many short novels (45,000 words to 60,000 words) in only three days. (Continue reading: How Michael Moorcock Wrote A Novel In Three Days.)

I had intended to continue this article on Moorcock, to make it a series, but that didn’t happen. That said, I think Moorcock’s method was similar to Lester Dent’s and I did write a five part series on Dent’s Master Story Formula. Here are the links:

Lester Dent's Short Story Master Formula

Lester Dent: How To Write A 6,000 Word Short Story: The First Quarter

Lester Dent's Master Fiction Formula: The Second 1,500 Words

Lester Dent's Master Fiction Formula: The Third 1,500 Words

Lester Dent's Master Fiction Formula: The Fourth And Final 1,500 Words

8. How To Write a Terrifyingly Good Horror Story, Parts One and Two

Want to write a story chalk full with thrills and chills? A few months ago I reached a point in my WIP where I had to kill off one of my antagonist's minions and was curious what tips other writers had for creating a gross out scene. Then I thought: Hey! I should blog about this. That's how this post began, but it turned into a series on how to write a terrifyingly good horror story. Here are the links:

17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story

17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story, Part 2 of 2

7. 7 Tips From James Patterson For Writing Suspenseful Prose

Did you know that, since 2001, James Patterson has sold more books than any other writer? Apparently 1 out of every 17 hardcover books sold has Patterson's name on it.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Patterson's writing, there is no arguing with his popularity. So, how does he do it? Here are Patterson’s tips for writing suspenseful prose. (Continue reading: 7 Tips From James Patterson For Writing Suspenseful Prose.)

6. 4 Ways To Write Every Day

After years of writing, I've noticed certain things about myself, my writing routine, and I thought I'd pass them on in case you're one of those people who's a bit like me. Here are suggestions for ways to write every day: (Continue reading: 4 Ways To Write Every Day.)

5. How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery

Lets revisit one of my favorite topics and examine how to write an engrossing murder mystery. To do this I’m going to take an in-depth look at a classic: "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden. Auden writes that the "basic formula is this: a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies." 

Generally speaking, mystery stories conform to the overall structure of a genre story, which is ... (Continue reading: How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery.)

Other articles in this series:

- The Importance of Setting In Writing A Murderously Good Mystery

- Writing A Murderously Good Mystery: The Importance of the Murder Victim

- How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery: The Murderer

4. Jim Butcher On How To Write A Suspenseful Story Climax

Someone once said to me: The first few pages of a novel sell that novel, the ending of the novel sells the next novel.

I believe that.

Endings are important. If I like a book but hate the ending I probably won't read another book by the same author. (Continue Reading: Jim Butcher On How To Write A Suspenseful Story Climax.)

3. George R.R. Martin On The Art And Craft Of Writing: 9 Tips For Writers

Have you read George R.R. Martin's interview in Rolling Stone magazine? I was amazed and a little shaken by the depth of Martin's innate, intuitive, grasp of storytelling. All the more so because this wasn't an interview conducted with writers in mind. He didn't set out to give writing advice—at least, I don't think he did—but, nevertheless, the advice was there.

Here's what I've taken away from the interview ... (Continue reading: George R.R. Martin On The Art And Craft Of Writing: 9 Tips For Writers.)

2. Best Fonts For Genre Book Covers

One of the most difficult things about creating a book cover is selecting a font. I'll try Impact and maybe Engravers MT and then reach for Lucida and then ... you get the idea. It's a hodgepodge of guesswork. Eventually I'll trip over something that works, but there's got to be a better way.

Derek Murphy has come to the rescue. (Continue reading: Best Fonts For Genre Book Covers.)

1. How To Write A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story

Choose Your Own Adventure stories are making a modest comeback thanks to tablets and smart phones. Let’s look at the structure of a Choose Your Own Adventure story and examine how to write one. (Continue reading: How To Write A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story.)

That’s it! I’m looking forward to another year of blogging about writing. Have a happy, and safe, New Year!

Photo credit: I altered the photo and added text. The photo I used was: "Cannes - Firework 2014 (China)" by ludovick under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Five Tips: A Miscellany of Writing Advice

Today I’m going to do something a bit different. I’ve finished reading Robert McKee’s “Story” but there are some odds and ends, advice that was occasionally revelatory, that I never shared. So that’s what I’m doing today. 

Many of the points that follow have to do with writing a mystery. That’s not an accident! Yes, you guessed it, I’m taking another run at writing a grizzly murder mystery. My strategy this time is to keep it short; by which I mean under 10,000 words.

I’ve reached the stage where I’ve got the story (what actually happens) more or less clear in my mind but the plot (the order in which the events in of story are presented to the reader) is still shrouded in impenetrable gloom.

Robert McKee On Writing

1. The five essential elements of a thriller.

According to McKee the five essential elements of a thriller are:

a. A cheap surprise. For McKee, a cheap surprise is a sudden shock out of nowhere whereas a true surprise involves a revelation. 

b. A false ending. You think the story’s over and then ... one final twist!

c. The protagonist is shown to be a victim.

d. A speech made in praise of the villain.

e. A scene in which the hero is at the mercy of the villain.

In my experience, while (a), (b), (d) and (e) do often occur in thrillers, (c) does not. But perhaps I haven’t seen enough thrillers!

2. What makes one story a murder mystery and another a thriller?

McKee’s answer: Point of view! In “Story” he writes:

“CRIME. Subgenres vary chiefly by the answer to this question: From whose point of view do we regard the crime?” His answer:

Murder Mystery --> Master detective’s POV

Caper --> Master criminal’s POV

Detective --> Cop’s POV

Gangster --> Crook’s POV

Thriller/Revenge Tale --> Victim’s POV

Courtroom --> Lawyer’s POV

Newspaper --> Reporter’s POV

Espionage --> Spy’s POV

Prison Drama --> Inmate’s POV

Film Noir --> “POV of a protagonist who may be part criminal, part detective, part victim of a femme fatale.”

I don’t agree with McKee. I don’t think POV is the essential characteristic that separates, say, a prison drama from a detective story. Why? Because I think that a drama could still be a prison drama if told from, say, a guards POV and that, similarly, were a person other than a master detective to tell a story of crime and detection, it could still be a murder mystery (after all, the Sherlock Holmes stories were told from Watson’s point of view.)

But, that said, I thought this list was interesting and potentially useful. 

3. About TV: “The key to the long form is dimensionality of character.”

That’s going to take a bit of unwrapping. 

By “long form” McKee is referring to what he calls 100-hour stories (e.g., Breaking Bad). 

As for “dimensionality of character” ...

“A dimension is a consistent contradiction in the nature of the character.”

For example, Walter White is incredibly gentle with some people and brutal with others. One might think that someone who treats a baby with such tenderness wouldn’t be capable of the level of brutality we saw Walter White achieve. 

So, in other words, the more contradictions you can believably weave into your character, the better. For instance, passive + aggressive, cruel + kind, arrogant + meek, brilliant + ignorant, and so on.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, often the key to showing a characters many dimensions is to pair him with other characters that will tease out these various qualities. (For more about this see: Mind Worms And The Essence of Drama as well as The Key To Making A Character Multidimensional: Pairs of Opposites.)

McKee’s comments here came from “The God of Story” by Alec Sokolow and Tony Camin.

4. The single most important question to ask yourself about your story: “Why am I attracted to this material?”

This is what McKee calls one of the big questions. 

I don’t agree with everything McKee says, though even what I don’t agree with often contains enough interest to warrant studying it. This, though, I agree with completely.

Why do you need to write this story? What need does it fill, what itch does it scratch? Are you fed up with multinational corporations raping the earth? Or perhaps you’re exasperated with (as my father called them) those darn environmentalists (he also shook his cane when a ‘young-un’ came too close to the lawn—really) trying to hogtie good, honest capitalists. Whatever your passion, whatever your outrage, whatever gets your juices flowing, transform it and connect it up to the story.   

5. The difference between English murder mysteries and American murder mysteries.

McKee said:

“In the English tradition a murder is committed and the investigation drives inward: you know, you’ve got six possible murderers. In the American Tradition, a murder is committed, we start to investigate, and it turns out to encompass all of society.”

For example, someone finds “an innocuous note saying that a professor has disappeared while hiking in the Andes, and some little bureaucrat is charged with finding out what happened, and he finds a conspiracy that runs to the White House.” (The Real McKee, New Yorker)

BTW, as an example of a mystery in the American tradition McKee mentions “The Parallax View.”

That’s not the first time someone has talked about the key difference between English and American murder mysteries—and it certainly won’t be the last!—but McKee’s formulation is both concise and clear. 

I think this is a good thing to keep in mind; at least, it’s something I try to keep in mind. English murder mysteries tend to   be narrow and deep. That is, they tend to tunnel inward into the lives of the victim and the suspects. American murder mysteries, on the other hand, tend to be wide and thin. That is, they tend to spread outward through society.

6. The protagonist’s arc

a. Balance. At the start of the story the protagonist’s life is more or less in balance.

b. The Inciting Incident. The protagonist’s life falls out of balance.

c. The Call to Adventure. This imbalance instills within the protagonist a conscious or unconscious desire to bring his life—to bring the world—back into balance.

But McKee isn’t just talking about character arcs. He says:

“The students realize that it’s their life I’m talking about: it’s out of balance, they’re struggling to put it into balance. How are they going to do it? They have conceived of that object, that something that if they could get it, would restore the balance of their life. Now, for the character, it could be that he needs to right the injustice that was done to his family; it could be to find something worth living for him to get up in the morning. Right? But for the student it’s a successful piece of writing and until they achieve a successful piece of writing their lives will be perpetually out of balance.”

I doubt that by “successful” McKee is only referring to monetary success. I think that, for some writers, a successful story would be one they were proud of having written. Or, to put it another way, a successful story, for some, could be a satisfying story. One that scratches a certain, internal, itch. One that brings—no matter how briefly—balance.

Balance

What McKee says here intrigues me. Everyone’s life, he says, is out of balance. His, mine, yours. Perhaps there wasn’t one single event, or one single cause, responsible for this imbalance but, regardless, we want to (consciously or unconsciously) achieve balance. 

If you’re a writer, or you want to be a writer, then that’s one way that (again, perhaps unconsciously) you’re striving to achieve balance. Balance in your life, balance in your world. 

Once we understand this, we also gain a greater understanding of our characters and of the quests we send them on.

Okay, maybe I read between the lines a wee bit! If you’d like to read the interview and judge for yourself, the above was from “The Real McKee: Lessons of a screenwriting guru” by Ian Parker over at the New Yorker.

That’s it! 

I’m curious. What is the most valuable advice you were ever given about writing? Please share!

Photo credit: Untitled by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Four Tips For Writing Flash Fiction, And Why You Should!

Once upon a time, I couldn’t write a 2,000 word piece of fiction if my life depended on it. 100,000 words, sure. 50,000 words, fine. 10,000 words, okay. 2,000? Ha! Nope. 

Now I can. 

What changed? One thing: I’d started to write flash fiction. 

I hadn’t thought much about this until a few days ago when a reader left a comment on Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction. Sean mentioned he’d had a similar problem and overcome it through writing flash fiction, stories told in fewer than 1,000 words.

So, today, I’d like to write about flash fiction—what it is and how to get started writing it. (For more on flash fiction and what it is, see: Five Reasons To Write Flash Fiction.)

1. Only write part of the larger story.

Full-length stories have a certain shape. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. In the beginning, the protagonist takes up a quest. In the middle, the protagonist enters the special (and strange) world of the adventure. At the end, the protagonist takes the fight to the enemy, finally overcoming the obstacles to attaining her goal. Or not.

One cannot do all this in 1,000 words or less. The trick is to pick just one part of the larger story to explore. 

For example, one could begin in the middle, before the protagonist’s confrontation with the antagonist and write about their epic battle. Or one could begin at the end, at the climax, and write about how the protagonist defeats the antagonist (or was trounced by them, it’s up to you and the kind of story you’re writing). OR you could take just one event from the beginning—perhaps the Call to Adventure—and focus on that. 

When the protagonist receives her Call to Adventure she often demurs and has to be cajoled. Something has to happen to change her mind. Perhaps a mentor will talk with her, perhaps the protagonist will be given something (in fairy tales this is often a magical item) that can help them on the journey, or perhaps the antagonist will hurt someone the protagonist cares about (think Star Wars) in a misguided effort to intimidate the protagonist. 

Those are just examples. You can pick any part of the protagonist’s journey and spin it into a (very) short story.

2. Use only one or two principle characters.

 In my flash fiction I usually only use two principle characters, a protagonist and antagonist. Other characters may be mentioned or play small parts, but I’ve found there really isn’t enough space to develop more than two characters. (But that could just be me. Experiment!)

3. End in the middle.

David Gaffney has put together a terrific article on the subject of writing flash fiction over at theguardian.com. It’s entitled “Stories in your pocket: how to write flash fiction.” Gaffney urges writers not to put the end of the story at ... well, the end of the story! He writes:

“[...] place the denouement in the middle of the story, allowing us time, as the rest of the text spins out, to consider the situation along with the narrator, and ruminate on the decisions his characters have taken.”

That sounds fun, I’m going to try that the next time I write a piece of very short fiction.

4. End with a twist.

David Gaffney doesn’t say this—in fact, it would seem to go against what he says—but I like flash fiction that ends with a twist. It’s difficult to do well, though.

I’ve shared this story before, but I love it and it’s a terrific example of a super-short tale with a killer twist. The story is called "Bad Dreams":

‘Daddy, I had a bad dream.’

You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness—it’s 3:23. ‘Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?’

‘No, Daddy.’

The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter’s pale form in the darkness of your room. ‘Why not, sweetie?’

‘Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy’s skin sat up.’

For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can’t take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.

I love that ending!

So, what are you waiting for? The next time you’re stuck in a lineup or in a bus or taxi, whip out your writer’s pad and get started on a lightening fast bit of fiction. What would happen if ...

That’s it!

If you’d like to practice writing flash fiction, I publish a writing prompt every weekday. A number of people who are far more creative than I am poke their head in and occasionally contribute. It’s an open group, so if the mood takes you feel free to come on by.

Another great place to practice the art and craft of writing short is Chuck Wendig’s blog. Every Friday he publishes a writing prompt. You post your work on your own web-estate and drop a link to your work in a comment. (Note: Due to his enthusiastic and creative use of decidedly adult language, Wendig’s website is NSFW.) Here’s an example: Flash Fiction Challenge: Superheroes Plus.

Photo credit: "One of these Things is not like the others." by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Six Ways To Begin A Story: Humor

Humorous Openings

I think that comedy and drama go hand in hand and, clearly, I’m not the only one.

(BTW, this post is part of a series on story openings. Here’s the first post: Six Ways To Begin A Story. At the bottom of that post there’s an index to all the other posts.)

These days even non-writers know who Vince Gilligan is. Breaking Bad has zoomed past popular to become a cultural phenomenon. And it’s obvious why. The show is well written, well acted, well produced. There’s something, though, I haven’t heard a lot of people talk about. I came across it the other day when I listened to the Breaking Bad insider podcast. Gilligan said that every scene had to have two things: a goal and something humorous. Gilligan believes that comedy and drama are two muscles in the same arm. (see: Vince Gilligan and the Dark Comedy of ‘Breaking Bad’)

Which brings us to the question ...

What’s funny?

What’s funny varies from person to person. One person will love puns while another can’t stand them, one person laughs at things another would find insulting. And so on. But, really, this isn’t all that different from prose writing. One person loves science fiction, another hates it. One person likes fantasy, another rolls their eyes at it. And so on.

Still, people can learn to be funnier. 

In what follows I’m going to look at five openings that made me chuckle then I’m going to try and take them apart and ask: WHY were these funny? What is it about them that made me grin?

Examples of humorous opening lines

The examples below are from the article 30 Funniest Opening Lines of Books.

1. “I don’t know how other men feel about their wives walking out on them, but I helped mine pack.” (Breaking Up by William H. Manville)

2. “I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.” (The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson)

3. “For the better part of my childhood, my professional aspirations were simple. I wanted to be an intergalactic princess.” (Seven Up by Janet Evanovich)

4. “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” (A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean)

5. “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression ‘As pretty as an airport.’” (The Long Dark Tea-Time of The Soul by Douglas Adams)

So, again, my question is: What characteristic, what property, what aspect of these openings makes them funny?

The Principles of Humor

This section heading is somewhat tongue in cheek since I don’t believe there are any hard and fast rules to being funny. There is no algorithm that will produce the comedy of Jerry Seinfeld. The principles that follow are merely starting points, gestures toward something one must find within themselves.

1. Repetition

Repetition sets up a joke by creating an expectation. When this expectation is subverted we often smile (or laugh or howl or whatever) if it’s done cleverly. There are various kinds of repetition.

a. The Rule of Three

“Writing comedically usually requires establishing a pattern (with the setup) and then misdirecting the reader (with the punch line). One simple way of doing this is to pair two like ideas in a list and then add a third, incongruent, idea. [...] Here’s an example of a sentence using the Rule of Three: Losing weight is simple: Eat less, exercise more and pay NASA to let you live in an anti-gravity chamber.” (How to Write Better Using Humor)

Here’s another example, this time from Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett:

“Many phenomena – wars, plagues, sudden audits – have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for Exhibit A.” 

Here the first two items in the list are wars and plagues. Nasty stuff. Not the sort of thing people laugh about. Then: sudden audits. We’re not talking about the same level of soul-sucking horror, but ... Anyone who’s had to do their taxes gets the joke.

b. Expressions

I said, above, that certain kinds of comedy rely on misdirection. This works especially well with phrases your readers have heard/read many times and are, perhaps, slightly bored of. Cliches. As Leigh Anne Jasheway mentions, if one writes, “You can lead a horse to water …” readers can’t help but anticipate reading “… but you can’t make him drink.” When that expectation is subverted the reader is ever so slightly confused, but there’s something pleasant about looking at something old in a new way. We’re a curious species. 

Leigh Anne Jasheway uses the title of Sarah Snell Cooke’s Credit Union Times article as an example: “You Can Lead a Horse to Water But You Can’t Make Him THINK.” She writes:

“Don’t limit yourself to old idioms: Cliché jokes can work with any widely known catchphrase, title, lyric or piece of literature (say, Dr. Seuss). Lyla Blake Ward’s book How to Succeed at Aging Without Really Dying, for example, is titled with a play on the well-known musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. You also don’t need to confine your creativity to just replacing a word or two.” (How to Write Better Using Humor)

A final example because I love his writing: The title to Terry Pratchett’s book “The Fifth Elephant.”

2. Comparisons

In Five Practical Tips on Writing Humor Alex Shvartsman writes that the comparison joke is a writer’s best friend. His example: 

The Game of Thrones is a lot like Twitter: There are 140 characters and terrible things are constantly happening.

That’s good. As Alex Shvartsman points out, your audience has to know a bit about both the Game of Thrones and Twitter for this joke to work, but if they do, it’s funny. 

3. The Absurd and Hyperbole

Woody Allen in his article, Money Can Buy Happiness—As If, writes:

“The final tragedy was Milo Vorpich. When Merrill Lynch went under, Vorpich put everything he owned into his mattress. All deposits and withdrawals were made from his Sealy Posturepedic.”

That made me smile. The image of a banker making deposits and withdrawals from ... not just a mattress, but a specific kind of mattress, a Sealy Posturepedic. It’s absurd. The two ideas the joke is based on (keeping money in a mattress and someone making deposits and withdrawals from a bank account) are perfectly normal, but put them together and the result is pleasantly absurd.

The openings classified:

I promised I would talk about which principles were involved in the examples I chose, so lets go through them. I’ll look at three things: a. repetition, b. comparison, c. the absurd.

1. (“I don’t know how other men feel about their wives walking out on them, but I helped mine pack.”) 

a. Repetition. The first part of the sentence sets up an expectation. How do men usually feel about their wives leaving them? One imagines they’d be sad. Manville subverts this expectation. There’s no repetition here, but, still, the first part of the sentence is strong enough to set up a clear expectation.

b. There is a comparison. How other men feel vs how the narrator feels.

c. The absurd. Yes, I think this qualifies. Not many men would help their wives pack ... well, unless their idea of helping was to throw her things out the window!

2. (“I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”) 

The principles involved, here, seem essentially identical to (1). Again, there’s no repetition as such, but whatever I expected to read after the first sentence, it wasn’t “Somebody had to.”) Also, there seems to be an implicit comparison, the people who come from Des Moines (if we are to believe the author, a set of one) and everyone else. I’m not sure, though, if suggesting that no one other than the author has left the town qualifies as absurd. 

3. (“For the better part of my childhood, my professional aspirations were simple. I wanted to be an intergalactic princess.”)

I’m beginning to see a pattern here! It seems that what all the sentences I chose as examples share is: they subverted my expectations in a way I thought was clever.

That’s it! If you have an example of a humorous opening you especially liked, please share it.

My series on story openings is nearly done, only one is left: archetypes. I’ll try and get to that on Monday. Thanks for reading!

Photo credit: "Laughing Up A Storm" by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Six Ways To Begin A Story: Puzzle Openings

On the 31st I began a series on Story Openings and claimed—boldly—that there were six. Well, more or less six; I suppose it depends on how one looks at it. Today I’d like to examine what I’m calling the Puzzle opening. (Here is the first post in this series: Six Ways to Begin a Story.)

Puzzle Openings

 I think of a puzzle opening as any kind of opening which isn’t primarily a description or that doesn’t primarily communicate conflict but which has been constructed to disorient and intrigue the reader.[1]

This can be done in a number of ways. For instance, by mentioning something impossible (or very unlikely) so the reader wonders, “What’s going on here, how can that be?” and reads on.

Example 1: 1984

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984 by George Orwell)

When I first read this sentence the mention of the clocks striking thirteen immediately got my attention. I was curious. What? Striking thirteen? It’s not an expression I had heard before.

“Thirteenth stroke of the clock or "thirteen strikes of the clock" is a phrase, saying, and proverb to indicate that the previous events or "strokes to the clock" must be called into question.” (Thirteenth Stroke of the Clock, Wikipedia.org)

cliffnotes.com elaborates:

“The thirteenth stroke here doesn't refer to military time but to an old saying. References to a thirteenth stroke of the clock indicate that some event or discovery calls into question everything previously believed. Put another way, the thirteenth stroke of the clock calls into question not only the credibility of itself but of the previous twelve.

“But notice in this opening line that it isn't just one clock malfunctioning, but the clocks. Presumably all of them. In this world, the clocks striking thirteen is not an aberration, but a normal way of life.

“In this way, Orwell subtly alerts the reader that statements of truth in this fictional society should be called into question.”

Here’s another opening I think of as a puzzle opening ...

Example 2: City of Glass

“It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.” (City of Glass by Paul Auster)

Here the protagonist gets a call from a stranger, a call that was intended for someone else. But this event sets the events of the book in motion. The question: How could a wrong number do this? Did he know the caller? Did the caller not believe him when he denied being who the caller believed he was? What was the call about? And so on.

Or (and this is my favorite) ...

Example 3: Peter Pan

“All children, except one, grow up.” (Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie)

The question raised: Why doesn’t this child grow up? What is special about him? I found the idea fascinating and tragic. (Tragic because, at the time, there was nothing I wanted more than to grow up. Oh how things change. ;)

Of course there’s a certain amount of overlap. To me the first line of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” is more about conflict than it is a puzzle but it also contains a puzzle: How on earth did this happen? Though, of course, the story is more about what happens than why it happened or even what kind of critter Gregor Samsa became.

That’s it! We’ve covered descriptive openings, conflict filled openings, puzzle openings. In the not too distant future I’ll cover archetypal openings, character driven openings and humorous openings. I think, though, that in my next post I’ll explore the tarot and how writers can use it to get inspiration for a scene.

Notes:

1. I want to stress that when I say an opening is of a certain kind, say a descriptive opening, I don’t mean to imply it doesn’t, for example, contain elements of conflict.

photo credit: "SuperFolie" by Joan Sorolla under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.